Jake Browning
reporter@thefranklinpress.com
May 28 will be the last student day for the 2020-21 school year in the Franklin area. For many, it will also be the long-awaited conclusion of one of the most beleaguered years in academic history brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. For administrators and teachers in Macon County Schools, however, the approach of summer school means that there’s one more leg left in this arduous journey.
Macon County Schools curriculum coordinator Josh Lynch said this will be one of the most important years ever for summer learning. The difficulties of implementing curriculum during the pandemic have led to a way above average amount of lost learning. Even when inviting only students who appear to be at risk of failure, this year’s enrollment of summer students may quadruple record numbers from previous years.
“In a normal summer, we may have a maximum of 90 K-4 students and usually more like 50 or 60,” Lynch said. “This year, we’ve invited 337 K-4 students from the Franklin area alone.”
In addition to those K-4 students, there are about 125 students in grades 5-8 who will participate in the summer learning program. The number of high school students who need remediation won’t be set in stone until after end-of-course exams, but there will certainly be many of them who require credit recovery classes. When all is said and done, Lynch expects that somewhere between 600 and 700 students will be involved in summer school this year.
This number doesn’t even include students who are technically not at risk of failing but whose families would like to see them get some additional help. While summer school won’t be available to them, Lynch said they’ll have no shortage of community options. The Macon County Public Library always has educational activities for children of all ages to participate in, as do the Nantahala Learning Center and the Bascom in Highlands. Summer Edventure Camp will go on this year with 70 students at Cartoogechaye Elementary School, where program director Lenora Clifton says they’re already booked solid.
“‘Castles and Catapults’ is our theme this year,” Clifton said. “We plan to be outside as much as possible on field trips to play in the creek, lake and pool.”
Summer school at this scale will only be possible thanks to fervent community dedication. Lynch said kids in the program will benefit from supervision and services offered by community partners like the Nantahala Learning Center, New Visions Gymnastics, Maggie’s Music School and Danny Antoine’s Karate Academy. Some of these organizations approached the school system first about helping kids recover from the strain of the pandemic, including Antoine, who spoke to the Board of Education about it in March.
“Given the issues we saw last year as a result of the lockdowns with COVID-19, so many children were suffering internally with not knowing how to handle the major changes in lifestyle,” Antoine said. “So we had a pretty successful year last year with our students with walking them through the pandemic by teaching them life skills on handling whatever life sends their way. We simply want to share all of this with more children to help them in their everyday lives.”
As with anything else in the school system, Lynch said the most important piece of their operational strategy is a team of dedicated teachers. There was a real concern early on that they wouldn’t have enough people to supervise every student in such a large program, but volunteers weren’t hard to come by. Classes will still be huge compared to most years, but there will be enough teachers, and administrators are extremely grateful for their commitment.
“We’re expecting about 20-26 students in each class, which is a lot when you consider that these are students in remediation who will need more one-on-one attention,” Lynch said. “Our teachers just did a fantastic job adjusting to teaching in a very different year and they’re still reaching out because they still see the need.”
Macon County Schools’ summer learning plan will run from June 14 through July 30. Class days will run from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.